Last week I had a client book me for a Tutoring walk, Josh, who was out of practice using his Nikon DSLR, wanted to get his skills up to scratch and start reusing his camera.

After passing his driving test, he suddenly forgot about photography and directed his focus to the pleasure of driving and the new found freedom it provides!

He had me booked for a 2 hour slot, so I settled on a suitable location that would present good opportunity for lessons.

First off its a waterfall country walk up Pontneddfechan, so understandably shutter speed, ISO and aperture were the most prominent topics, we had stopped down by the river and set up the tripod for a milky water shot, I had asked what he thinks the settings should be, to which Josh responded with "low shutter speed?".

Josh had a quick grasp of what I was saying and learned quickly, and started producing the shots we had in mind.

I begun explaining why the flash tends to pop up during use in auto, and that to overcome the awful photos this method captures, by raising the ISO to compensate for darker scenes.

I then moved onto aperture and how depth of field is controlled, Josh had little understanding to begin with for this, so a few portraits later, and a vista of up river, I had taught Josh how higher aperture values increase the DOF for the further away subjects and landscapes, and for portraits or subjects you wish to single-out, lower values work best.

Josh

The rest of the walk was spent snapping the waterfalls and chatting about camera settings lingo.

The next few shots really dont pay attention to how busy the route was that day, people were everywhere, we were barely alone, and for the final shot, I had a lucky break in the people walking round the back of the falls and crossing in front of us